Building a Viking Empire with Modern Industry-Chapter 194: Three hundred men?

The Great Hall of Kattegat

Ragnar picked up a chunk of roasted venison, inspecting the charred edges before taking a cautious bite.

He chewed. And chewed.

"This is... remarkably tough," Ragnar muttered, swallowing hard. He picked up a piece of flatbread, tapping it against the wooden platter. "And tasteless. Is there no salt in Kattegat?"

Jarl Hakon, sitting across from him with a horn of ale, scowled deeply. "It keeps us alive in the freezing dark, Ragnar. We do not all dine on Frankish wine and spiced peacock. The winter is harsh, and the Gore-King’s taxes took our salt months ago."

"You should eat better," Ragnar replied, dropping the hard bread. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, silver-chased flask, taking a sip of distilled grain spirit. "My foundry workers eat better than this. Even the men hauling slag from the furnaces get salted pork and fresh ale every evening."

Gyda, sitting to his right, hadn’t touched her plate. "A starving workforce is an inefficient workforce, Hakon. Your men look like they would collapse after a single shift in the mines."

"We are warriors, girl!" an old, scarred Viking spat from down the table, slamming his fist down. "We don’t dig in the dirt! We fight!"

"You bleed," Bjorn interrupted loudly from his place by the fire, tearing a massive bite out of a bone. He grinned, grease shining in his beard. "That’s all I see you doing tomorrow. Bleeding. You call yourselves warriors, but you’re shaking in your boots over three hundred men."

"Three hundred berserkers!" Hakon roared, standing up, his pride finally breaking through his fear.

"Listen to me, Bjorn! You mock us, but I have counted the men who rowed you ashore! Two hundred! That is all you brought! You speak of fire and iron, Ragnar, but when dawn breaks, it will be two hundred of your guards against a horde of hardened killers!"

A tense silence fell over the hall. The villagers looked at Ragnar, their eyes wide with desperate doubt.

Though they had seen the explosive power of his ships, a ship could not fight in the narrow streets of the village.

Ragnar slowly lowered his silver flask. He let out a low, rumbling chuckle. The chuckle grew into a genuine, booming laugh.

"Killers?" Ragnar laughed, adjusting his monocle. "You call men who swing sharpened iron on wooden sticks killers?"

"They eat the flesh of their enemies!" Torstein yelled from the corner, his missing arm a grim reminder. "Do not underestimate them!"

"I don’t underestimate anyone," Ragnar said. He planted his hands on the table and pushed himself up.

He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of every terrified man and woman.

"You think I am trapped here?" Ragnar asked, spreading his arms wide. "You think two hundred men is the limit of my reach? Hakon, listen to me closely. I came here to fetch my mother and shake your hand over a simple trade agreement. I brought two hundred men because that is an honor guard!"

Hakon blinked, confused. "...?"

"Do you know what waits for me across the narrow sea?" Ragnar shouted, his voice vibrating with absolute authority. "Thirty thousand men!"

The hall erupted into gasps and murmurs of disbelief.

"Thirty thousand?!" Hakon sputters, ale spilling onto his furs. "Impossible! No king commands such a horde! Not even the Franks!"

"My men do not wear scavenged ring-mail. I have cannons that can level your entire valley in an afternoon! I have trains of iron that haul mountains of coal across the land!" Ragnar sneered, his eyes flashing in the firelight.

"He speaks the truth," Bjorn grunted, tossing his bone into the fire.

Ragnar began to pace, his iron-tipped cane striking the dirt floor.

"I left this frozen wasteland because it offered nothing but misery and short, brutal lives," Ragnar continued, his gaze sweeping over the impoverished crowd. "I built an empire of industry. An empire of wealth, where the skies burn with progress! And why did I return? Because I needed timber. I needed deep water. I thought I could simply buy it from you."

He stopped, turning his piercing gaze toward the doors, pointing his cane toward the snowy darkness outside.

"But what do I find?" Ragnar demanded. "I find a land terrorized by a savage playing dress-up with a bone crown! A ’Gore-King’ who starves his own people, who burns villages."

"I asked myself, why should I bleed my men for this ice? Why should I fight this King Erik? Ultimately, I am a man of logic. A man of iron."

He slammed his cane into the ground. "However... I cannot stomach the waste! I look at this land, and I see strong men freezing. I see deep waters sitting empty. I see a kingdom ruled by a cannibal fool who does not know the true value of the earth beneath his feet! You let a beast dictate your lives because you do not have the steel to stop him!"

Sigrid watched her son from the hearth, a fierce, proud smile slowly spreading across her weathered face.

"You want to know what I am doing here?" Ragnar bellowed. "I am putting an end to this pathetic age of mud and blood! I will not just take your timber, Hakon. I will take it all! I will drag Norway into the age of iron, even if I have to drag it kicking and screaming!"

"You mean to conquer us?" Hakon whispered, stepping back, completely overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of Ragnar’s ambition.

"I mean to save you from your own incompetence," Ragnar stated coldly. "Thus, King Erik’s reign ends tomorrow at dawn."

Gyda stood up gracefully, her voice cutting through the heavy tension like a silver blade. "The Director has made his declaration. By tomorrow afternoon, the current regime of Norway will be permanently dismantled. Eventually, you will thank us for the stability."

"Wait!" Torstein cried out, stepping forward. "Three hundred men! Even with your fire, they are too many! They will scatter and flank you in the village!"

Ragnar chuckled, a dark, terrifying sound. "Let them scatter. They will only die tired." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

He turned to Bjorn. "Are the quick-load tubes distributed to the Grenadiers?"

"Every man has ten clips loaded and ready," Bjorn grinned, patting a heavy leather pouch on his belt. "The Repeater Cannons are sighted down the main path. The kill-box is perfect."

"Good," Ragnar said, walking back to the table and picking up his silver flask.

He looked at the awe-struck, terrified faces of the Vikings in the Great Hall. They had never seen a man speak with such absolute, unquestionable certainty in the face of death.

"To the Iron Father!" Bjorn roared, drawing a hidden pistol and firing a blank shot into the wooden rafters.

"To the Iron Father!"

With this said, Ragnar took a long, burning swallow from his flask.